Ouroboros chess improvement journal

The Emperor's Lounge
#21

Went to Denny’s to play chess with my friend

We played almost 6 hours while chatting, analyzing positions together, having fun.

We like to play a chess game but also suggest moves for each other and help each other analyze in the middle of the game.

When it’s a tight position, we just start analyzing together out loud, find the best move together, and then the person plays it. It’s fun!

And sometimes we have different opinions, that’s the funnest.

Nothing better than when my friend says “I don’t think you should do that because XYZ will happen and I’ll do XYZ,” but then I say “nah watch me” and play what he says is bad (and win as a result… sucks if I lose and he was right lol!)

The Denny’s server came and played against me, we got into a fried liver where I played b5 after (…d5, exd5)

So a gambit line not the main line

I was completely winning out of the opening and middle game, got a piece, and had a winning endgame, but I blundered the endgame and he won.

Turns out he played nationals in India :joy::joy::joy:

Working on my endgames a lot more now, got a lil chessable course and am working on them

#22

Are you still playing?

#23

Occasionally just for fun. Over the holidays I got quite addicted again. It has very bad addiction potential for me. It’s better if I just don’t play at all.

Now I just play 1. B3 as white so I don’t have to study openings and 1. …b6 as black for the same reason - one setup and system as both Color’s to take away the addictive impulse to study openings. Once I started only playing those two openings I gained a bunch of ELO. Everybody blunders their pawn in 5 moves :joy:

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#24

So you are playing the king’s indian defence?

#25

That’s g6

I’m referring to this

IMG_2745
IMG_27451179×2556 223 KB

#26

Can you explain why do you play this?

#27

it’s fun, it’s super easy to remember, i’m the attacker forcing defense from the opponent, nobody is ever exposed to it (even though it’s objectively a good evaluation line), and i understand the themes.

on a deeper level, i’d say having an opening that doesn’t require a lot of study has reduced the addictive nature of chess and doesn’t have me going and studying openings for hours after a loss

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#28

So the second move is bishop to b2? Than what is the game plan?

#29

Here’s a very typical game

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#30

Thanks, btw i tried this opening before you sent this game and won 5 games in a row, in 2 games they blundered their queen straight to the bishop

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#31

Exact same game plans with black. You put the pawns and knights so that they don’t block the bishop, then the bishop has the long diagonal

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#32

Dude my win rate with this opening for the first 2 weeks was 70% and I immediately shot up 100+ elo

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#33

And I’m a TERRIBLE time control player - in that 30% of games I lost, some of them were me losing on time up a piece or more. And that’s losing on time in 5+3 format :joy::joy::joy::joy::joy:

#34

That’s why I always play 10 minute Chess. I don’t like feeling constrained on time to be able to think about my moves.

#35

Man if I can figure out my time thing, I’ll jump 300 elo instantly. But i suck at blitz. like up a queen and i freeze

#36

Just change your time control. You don’t need to be “fast” at Chess.

You’d probably do way better in the 10 minute time control.

#37

yeah i’m 300 pts higher in rapid

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#38

The basic idea is to Fianchetto the Queen Bishop to put pressure on the center and establish d4. Black would do well to clog the diagonal and weaken the impact of the bishop while fighting for control of the center.

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#39

wow! i’m the biggest chess nerd i know but i think you’ve got me beat. 6 hours!!
let’s play sometime. i’m Swordfish1 on lichess. on Chess.com I’ve got 2 accounts (got a free diamond membership for 1 month from Duolingo), I think one of them is Daanish1. never played a game there with someone I know so idk how that works.

@aaa let’s also play, esp if you’re already on lichess.

one thing i’d really like to find but havent been able to so far. i want to do puzzles that are purely dedicated to knight forks. that’s it. i want to master that. neither lichess or chess com seem to have that, their forks are diluted with other stuff. so if you guys know of any resources, please do share.

#40

I would check out these things

This is a free course all about knight tactics, not exclusively forks, but TBH i think you shouldn’t do EXCLUSIVELY forks because then you’ll only recognize them if you know they’re there. You want there to be a small variety of tactics so that you can focus on what you want to train, but also have to recognize it amid other options. This course will be a lot of knight forks though.

https://chessly.com/dashboard/training/anti-puzzle

There’s also this, generally speaking, which is even better than tactics in some ways… anti-puzzles are positions where you not only have to find the tactic, but, you have to decide whether or not there’s a tactic at all. It’s easy to find tactics when all you do is play the most ludicrous sacrifice because you know there has to be something. But it’s a lot different when you have an attacking-type position and are asked whether or not there’s checkmate in the first place, compared to a chess.com tactics puzzle in which there always is. That just replicates real chess more - you have to consider their defense

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